Skip First Die for New Brass?

[mrkurtz]

I am new to reloading. Up until now I have reloaded old rifle brass with a shoulder,303,30-06. I just picked up a 45-70. It has a 3 die set since it has straight walls. I bought new Starline brass. It measures the correct case length right out of the bag.
My question is whether I can completely skip the first die and go straight to bell and prime?
Thank you

[Dutch Henry]

No. New unprimed brass should be passed through a sizing die, just as you would do with once fired brass.

[nimbus]

Every time I buy new Starline brass I just load them without resizing.

I'm up to 3k 45acp cases, 1k 9mm's, and 500 45mag's with no issues. No particular reason why I do it this way, but resizing won't hurt anything I suppose.

[beetle]

why take the chance? just run them through the resizing die. last thing you want is a bunch of loaded rounds that are the wrong size.

[NukleusX]

Any brand new brass I have loaded I have not bothered sizing, as long as they check out in the case length/headspace gauge I've figured they are g2g-

[mrkurtz]

I will be seating a Hornady round nose 350 gr bullet for a Marlin lever gun. Are the round nose safe in a feed tube?

[WMG]

I will be seating a Hornady round nose 350 gr bullet for a Marlin lever gun. Are the round nose safe in a feed tube?

Yes , do it all the time with 30/30 and 35rem....., and I am on the team that sizes new brass also ....... never know what the specs are and I've seen new with dent/dings , not that it matter much if it's little ... but I'd rather poke them out.

[JagerDog]

I like to run through the sizer, just to make sure things are round and uniform. I will say the Starline 45-70 brass is pretty stout though I didn't didn't notice any bent case mouths with mine.

There will be varying opinions, but I've seen nothing verifiable indicating round nose wasn't save for tubular magazine. Most 30-30 ammo I've seen is round nose. I'm primarily loading round nose flat point in mine though. I have a couple different weights of Bear Creek and Swift A-frames and that's the way they come. A wide meplat is often desirable for game.

[TexasJackKin]

I haven't loaded much new brass, but when I have I always run it through a sizing die. Mostly to insure consistent neck tension.

[pacrat]

I am new to reloading. Up until now I have reloaded old rifle brass with a shoulder,303,30-06. I just picked up a 45-70. It has a 3 die set since it has straight walls. I bought new Starline brass. It measures the correct case length right out of the bag.
My question is whether I can completely skip the first die and go straight to bell and prime?
Thank you

Two basic purposes for sizing cases.

[1]....so case fits the gun.

[2]....so the bullet fits the case.

If the new cases fit your rifle. And you can't force a bullet in the neck by hand. You don't need to resize them.

Mostly to insure consistent neck tension.

That is an oft believed fallacy dis-proven back in the 1970s by Dean Grennell. Using a strain gauge. Whether it is a .001" interference fit. Or a .006" interference fit. Between neck and bullet. It does take more pressure to "seat" the bullet with more interference. Because you are stretching the case neck more. But due to the elastic properties of cartridge brass. The pressure required to "pull" the bullet out of the case remains the same.

IIRC, Bo Lee repeats Grennell's findings in his "Second Edition" manual.

Found it! Pg 55, first paragraph titled "Bullet Seating". Being Lee, he did not give credit to Dean Grennell for the testing that factually confirmed it 30 yrs prior.


JM2c

[tmorse]

I have not sized new starline brass but have bought pistol brass in .38 spl and 38 super. dimensions were pretty good out of the box.

[wpod]

I bought new brass once (Starline), .44 mag.
I ran it through all the dies.
The issue I ran into was that I didn't inside chamfer the cases, at first.
A few cases were ruined when seating the bullet.
I chamfered the rest and no more problems.
New brass isn't perfect brass.

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk

[tonyjr]

The few times I buy bought new brass , it came in either 50 or 100 cases in a bag / box [ no dividers serperating cases ] .
I resize everything - new brass gets dinged , easy to bend mouth and I even run the primer pocket / flash hole tool thru them .
I have found flash holes too big , egg shaped primer pockets , and bent bases .
If I get a new gun , I order bullets , cases while gun in jail . After that it is range brass .
I also run thru tumbler - I have no idea what they put on cases to keep them pretty .
It is better to over check than to say " I wish I had " or " I should have . "

[bazineta]

While Starline tends to be excellent right out of the box, depending on someone else to do your QA is rolling the dice. Pulling bullets is no one's fun task ("good outcome" -- "rats, these won't chamber"), nor is rehab a fun time ("bad outcome" -- "well, I guess that case was way too long; grab my finger there, will ya?").

Just sayin'.

[CSACANNONEER]

As long as it is within spec, it is fine. You can either use a chamber gauge or, depending on the firearm, it can be easy to use the actual chamber of the gun you are going to fire them through.